ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

August 2, 2017 (San Diego’s East County) - East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

One of the world's largest and best-known hacker conventions, DEF CON, debuted an interactive "Voting Machine Hacker Village" this year at its annual gathering in Las Vegas. In some cases, within minutes, and in other cases within a few hours, of the village doors' opening, hackers in attendance said they had successfully breached some systems. The security investigators claimed to have found major vulnerabilities or claimed to have breached every voting machine and system present.

A pending court decision could force the Trump administration to pump billions of dollars into Obamacare insurers, even as the president threatens to let the health care law “implode.” Health insurers have filed nearly two dozen lawsuits …Insurers are owed more than $8 billion in payments, and the tab is likely to grow. Insurers say spending restrictions Republicans forced on the “risk corridors” program during the Obama administration, aside from being illegal, are partly to blame for severe turbulence in some Obamacare marketplaces.

North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile Friday, which defense experts say could reach as far as New York or other U.S. East Coast cities. The most recent test lofted the North Korean missile on a very high trajectory, bringing it down in the Sea of Japan. Preliminary data from the launch reveals that half, if not most, of the continental U.S. would be in range of the missile tested Friday."Looks like it pretty much can get to New York, Boston and probably falls just short of Washington," David Wright, co-director and senior scientist for the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told CNBC.

Frustrated by the failure of the Obamacare repeal in the Senate, President Trump on Saturday threatened to end federal subsidies for healthcare insurance – for Congress as well as the rest of the country.

House Democrats are poised to advance a flood of proposals designed to address the problems dogging President Obama's signature healthcare law –– a move that puts pressure on Republican and Democratic leaders alike.

…Tens of thousands of families from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, and some from Mexico, came here citing their need for protection from predatory gangs and criminal violence. Now, they face the prospect of being sent back …Of nearly 100,000 parents and children who have come before the courts since 2014, most asking for refuge, judges have issued rulings in at least 32,500 cases, court records show. The majority — 70 percent — ended with deportation orders in absentia, pronounced by judges to empty courtrooms.

Judge Patricia Millett told the Federal Aviation Administration to take another look at an advocacy group's assertion that shrinking airline seats are imperiling passenger safety. The judge rejected the FAA's argument that seat size was unimportant to getting off the plane in an emergency.

Two Chinese fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Navy surveillance plane over the East China Sea over the weekend, with one coming within about 300 feet (91 meters) of the American aircraft, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday.

An Israeli embassy security guard shot dead a Jordanian who stabbed him with a screwdriver in the Amman mission compound in an incident in which a Jordanian bystander was also killed, Israel said on Monday.